BACKGROUND: From a previous post of this Blog: (June11, 2023): "Manitoba Justice? Robert Sanderson: Canada's justice minister has agreed to refer his case to the Manitoba Court of Appeal - after Sanderson has served 25 years in prison for a 1996 triple murder. As Investigative Reporter Katrina Clarke reports in the Winnipeg Free Press, in Sanderson's mind, that hearing - which he hopes will unequivocally acquit him - cannot come soon enough…"In 1996, Sanderson became the police’s focus in a murder investigation partly because they found blood from three men killed at a West Kildonan home in his car, along with a bloody baseball bat. Sanderson told police he loaned out his car but he refused to “rat out” the person to whom he had lent it. “I’m not saying my car wasn’t there,” he told police the day after the killings. “I wasn’t there. But police also found a hair on a foot of a victim at the crime scene. At trial, an expert Crown witness said the hair belonged to Sanderson, based on microscopic analysis. Adding to that, two witnesses testified against Sanderson and the two other accused, Roger Sanderson (no relation) and Robert Tews. A 15-year-old, who said she was a former sex worker who worked for Robert Sanderson, testified she saw him leave their hotel room with guns and knives the night of the murder and return with bloody clothes and jewelry. Brent Stevenson, 20, who was a friend of the 15-year-old and a former gang associate, testified that Roger Sanderson confessed to him that Robert Sanderson and Tews were his co-conspirators in the murders. A jury convicted all three men, sentencing them to life in prison."
https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/1722915946616826836
------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTES OF THE DAY: "Mr. Sanderson’s mother was Ojibway and he is a member of the Métis Nations. Since his arrest and imprisonment in 1996, he was to become a well-known Aboriginal artist, and his Indigenous artwork includes wood carvings, masks and traditional paintings of extraordinary beauty. He was released on parole in 2021 and now lives in western Canada. As the Court of Appeal said in its decision: “Mr. Sanderson is self-employed as an Indigenous artist with a considerable reputation and has maintained a stable relationship and has positive support in the community.” Innocence Canada counsel Jerome Kennedy and James Lockyer said today: “We are grateful to Minister Lametti and the Manitoba Court of Appeal for their decisions in Mr. Sanderson’s case. We spoke to Mr. Sanderson this morning and he is delighted that his case is almost over. It has, he said, been a long time."
---------------------------------------------------------
INNOCENCE CANADA RELEASE: May 30, 2025:
GIST: "This morning, Robert Sanderson’s convictions for three counts of First-Degree Murder were quashed by the Manitoba Court of Appeal, who ordered a new trial.
The Crown has advised the Court of Appeal that it will exercise its discretion and enter a stay of the proceedings on public interest grounds. It is anticipated that this could occur as soon as later today.
On August 6, 1996, three men, Stefan Zurstegge, Thomas Krowetz and Jason Gross were found murdered in Mr. Krowetz’s home.
It was the Crown theory that Mr. Krowetz and Mr. Zurstegge were members of the Red Liners gang and were being courted by the Hells Angels and were murdered by members of the Manitoba Warriors, a gang of which Mr. Sanderson was alleged to be a member.
On September 19, 1996, Mr. Sanderson and two other men were charged with the murders.
On June 26, 1997, Mr. Sanderson and one of his co-accused were convicted of the murders and both lost their subsequent appeals.
In 2017, Innocence Canada submitted an application to the Minister of Justice for ministerial review of his convictions based on new evidence.
On February 10, 2023, Justice Minister David Lametti found that there was a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred, and referred Mr. Sanderson’s case to the Manitoba Court of Appeal for a new appeal.
Today, with the agreement of the prosecution, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions.
The new evidence came in two forms:
1. A crown expert testified that hair seized from the leg of one of the deceased was “more likely” from Mr. Sanderson. The Crown used this testimony to suggest that Mr. Sanderson “left a piece of himself at the scene of the crime.” Post-conviction DNA testing has established that the hair, as the Court of Appeal puts in
their decision today, it “did not and could not have come from Mr. Sanderson.”
2. An eyewitness to events before the homicides who linked Mr. Sanderson to them was given substantial sums of money by the authorities pursuant to an agreement after he testified at the trial, totalling more than $15,000.00. This was not disclosed to Mr. Sanderson and the prosecution could not explain why it was not disclosed.
Mr. Sanderson’s mother was Ojibway and he is a member of the Métis Nations. Since his arrest and imprisonment in 1996, he was to become a well-known Aboriginal artist, and his Indigenous artwork includes wood carvings, masks and traditional paintings of extraordinary beauty.
He was released on parole in 2021 and now lives in western Canada.
As the Court of Appeal said in its decision: “Mr. Sanderson is self-employed as an Indigenous artist with a considerable reputation and has maintained a stable relationship and has positive support in the community.”
Innocence Canada counsel Jerome Kennedy and James Lockyer said today:
“We are grateful to Minister Lametti and the Manitoba Court of Appeal for their decisions in Mr. Sanderson’s case.
We spoke to Mr. Sanderson this morning and he is delighted that his case is almost over. It has, he said, been a long time.""
There entire story can be read at:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
-----------------------------------------------------------------
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
